Study reveals promising serum biomarker candidate for NASH diagnosis

A recent study depicted that leucine aminopeptidase 3 (LAP3) can serve as a valuable serum biomarker candidate for the diagnosis of liver illness. Lina Feng et al. and other researchers sought to assess if LAP3 can be a promising biomarker to diagnose nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). To determine the LAP3 level, liver tissues and serum were collected from NASH patients and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients who also had NASH (CHB+NASH). In CHB people and CHB+NASH people, correlation analysis was done to assess the relationship between the expression of LAP3 and clinical indexes.

The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis of LAP3 in the serum and liver was used. In the serum and hepatocytes of NASH rats and NASH-affected people, LAP3 was markedly elevated. According to correlation analysis, LAP3 in the liver of CHB and CHB+NASH patients exhibited a strong positive correlation with the lipidome markers total cholesterol and triglyceride, as well as the liver fibrosis marker hyaluronic acid, that displayed a negative correlation with the international normalized ratio (INR) of prothrombin coagulation and the liver injury marker aspartate aminotransferase (AST).

For NASH, the specificity was AST (0.975) > alanine transaminase [ALT] (0.9) > LAP3 (0.5), the diagnostic accuracy was ALT > LAP3 > AST, and the sensitivity was LAP3 (0.87) > ALT (0.5957) > AST (0.2941).